ThisIsVlad

when we were about to leave kho tao, we realized that a lot of the roads here were totally flooded. usually this wouldn’t be a problem (we could just take a taxi) but we needed to return our mopeds back to the pier. so we would have to brave the roads. also, i had dropped off my laundry at a place, and needed to get it back before we left the island. since it was raining, the laundry place hadn’t finished my laundry yet and for some bizarre reason the lady started screaming at us when i asked for the laundry back. she also gave us the nastiest scowl i’ve ever seen in my life. it’s so weird cause i’ve never seen any thai people act like this. i finally got my laundry back, clean but not dry, and didn’t realize till later that night that the lady had stolen (or forgotten) my shorts. damn!

so as i mentioned, the roads were insane and honestly i’m amazed that we were able to drive on them. at one point we went thru this stretch where the water was a foot deep, and we actually had to lift our feet off of the pedals so they wouldnt be submerged under water! when we got to the pier we told the ticket lady that we already had tickets for the 3pm ferry, but she tried to tell us that the boat was full so we couldnt go. no matter how many times we told her and showed her our tickets, she wouldnt budge. at this point we started to panic. it was the 31st, and if we couldnt get a ferry to the huge new years party on kho-phangan, we would be stuck on quiet kho tao for new years. finally we were able to talk to another lady who fixed the problem for us. it’s a shock how disorganized so much of the stuff here is. the ferries get canceled all the time, and the non-canceled ones are often late, hotels are often not sure how many rooms they have vacant, and basically everyone just goes about their jobs w/ not too much concern for the customer or anything else.

back on kho-phangan, all the hotels were completely booked up for nye so i ended up sharing a room w/ jenny and eric. their room is one of the nicest rooms i’ve seen so far: good water pressure in the shower and an actual flush toilet (it’s amazing how much you start valuing the little things in life). after enjoying a delicious dinner, we went out to start celebrating.

new years was so much fun! the whole beach is lined w/ bars, and all sorts of crazy day glo decorations. also there are makeshift bars set up all over the beach itself. there are tons of sound systems blaring music up and down the beach and everyone is rocking out. here you can get these buckets filled w/ whatever hard alcohol you choose, and the buckets have like 10 straws so you and all your friends can drink at the same time. soo much fun! the buckets are about 300B (7.50) and have tons of alcohol in them. needless to say, everyone out that night was drunk as hell.

being here to celebrate new years was so crazy. imagine the wildest party you’ve been to, times a hundred, mixed w/ 8,000 people from all over the planet, all set in a gorgeous tropical setting. people were also setting off fireworks all over the beach, and there were people spinning fire etc. we bought a bottle of champagne and when the clock hit midnight, we shook it up like crazy, sprayed it everywhere and drank what was left. i guess there’s some tradition where people are supposed to kiss on nye or something and several times through out the night random girls just came up to me and started kissing me, which was pretty cool. we spent the rest of the night dancing and partying until about 4:30 in the morning.

the next day was pretty mellow. woke up fairly late cause we were tired form the night before, and then i spent the rest of the day hanging out w/ jenny and eric. i didn’t know them at all before this trip and didn’t know what to expect from them, and they turned out to be hella cool and we had a good time hanging out. although usually i’m super shy w/ people i dont know well, i’ve felt very at ease w/ them.

we got a thai massage today, and it was sooooooo good. this one put the other one i had to shame! all 3 of us could barely walk after it was over. tonight is the last night here on kho-phangan, and tomorrow we’re leaving to go to krabi, on the west side of the south of thailand.

-v

so the rain here just wont let up. as much as i love it, it would be nice to have at least one day to be dry. we spent last night walking around in the rain trying to keep dry and looking for a bar. at one bar we ran into this guy who had just gotten here form Laos. he spent two weeks there and told us all about how cool it is. hearing all his stories made me really excited that i’m gonna go there in a few weeks. he even showed us photos on his digital camera.

actually, speaking of digital cameras, we had a pretty funny moment in a restaurant last night. tom was taking a photo of us eating in the restaurant, and all of the thais that worked there got super excited that the digital camera showed the photo as soon as it was taken. pretty soon we were photographing all sorts of the people that worked at the restaurant, w/ people pouring out of the kitchen to crowd around and look at the photos of themselves. they were so excited! interacting w/ thai people here has been so great. for the most part they are all so truly friendly, smiley, and nice. it seems like they are always laughing and have this aura of kindness about them. and the thing is, all of it seems very genuine. not like back home when you get a nice waitress and you know they are just chatting you up in hopes of getting a good tip (there are no tips here btw).

today i did my final dives and got my diving license. i’m now certified and can dive anywhere in the world up to 60 feet deep. shweet!

-v

so, yesterday i decided to get a thai massage. everyone had always talked about how great they were and how relaxed they made you. so i went to go get one, and it’s only 200B(5$). so, the thai massage is pretty hard to explain. they basically bend you in all these really weird positions. pressing on random parts of your body, tugging on other parts, and hitting you all over the place. so it actually did turn out to feel really good and was really relaxing. oh and they even stand on you and walk all over your back at one point. once they were done, my whole body felt so loose. great!

when i had dinner tonight, i ended up having this really long conversation w/ this british dude. when i told him that i feel lucky to have this trip cause most people in the US only have 2 weeks of vacation a year, he looked at me in horror! really, he just couldn’t believe that and said that this was unheard of! every other country gave their people about 5 to 6 weeks off. he really just couldn’t understand how people could live like that… and honestly all i could do was agree with him. i mean really, you work your job so that you can enjoy the free time you get in the end… and if that free time is only 2 weeks out of 52 a year?? is that really a life? we spent a lot of the rest of the conversation debating how i should move from the states to somewhere else.. anywhere else… and although i cant say i’m totally convinced, it really gave me a lot to think about.

today in the morning it was pouring again. it took me hardly any time at all to realize that riding a moped in the rain on gravel roads isnt very safe: the whole bike skidded out on a turn, and it was only thru an amazing stroke of luck that i didn’t crash. it also didn’t take me hardly any time at all to realize that riding the moped thru the rain is really really fun. i’m coming to terms w/ the fact that i’m gonna spend a lot of this trip wet, and it’s ok.

in the afternoon i went on my first dive. so dope!! we went out fairly far from shore and dove down to only about 30 feet deep, but it was still so cool. tons of cool fish down there and the coral is amazingly beautiful. also there are these tiny fluorescent plants that stick out of holes in the rock, if you swim by them, the plants dart backwards into the holes somehow. swimming down in the depths is so amazingly peaceful and tranquil. other than your respirator, it’s completely silent and you just slowly float around observing the life around you. it’s weird to be able to just float there..like you’re in outer space…. actually.. i’m hoping that sometime i’ll be able to do a night dive while i’m here. that would be really trippy.

after my dive, jamie and tom met me by my bungalow. they’re spending one day here on kho tao. it’s really fun to be able to share traveling stories. each of us have had our own unique experiences here in thailand, and it’s really cool to see how the other’s trip has been going. when we went to a store looking for flip-flops today, we saw that they sold fireworks. werd! we are planning on buying a bunch and lighting them off on the beach. unfortunately, after we went swimming tonight, we tried to light one and it was bunk.. but there’s plenty more where that came from.

-v

last night it started raining and it would not let up. i’m not talking light showers, i’m talking about a hardcore downpour. pretty soon the streets were all flooding and you were walking thru water as you navigated the city. luckily we were able to grab a few umbrellas, and tom bought this hella funny looking “raincoat” which looked like a cheap trashbag but bright yellow. being in the rain here is awesome! i’ve always really loved it when it rained back home. there’s definitely something fun and exciting about it… but it’s always really been too cold to enjoy. not here. here you can walk around, and it’s warm and wonderful and you can really enjoy the rain to it’s fullest.

we spent most of the night just walking around town, eating a few times, and getting drinks. heh, at the bar we were at, they didnt have vodka on the menu so we asked them what kind of hard alcohol they had. they said bacardi, so we asked to get bacardi mixed in w/ a fruitshake. little did we know, that bacardi actually meant bacardi breeze (those wine cooler things)… the outcome was quite weird and had practically no alcohol in it.

the bungalow i stayed in last night was pretty jacked. it wasn’t really sealed from the outside well, so there were all sorts of bugs flying in it, and a huge ugly spider. and the bathroom… well…. um… lets just say i had to shower at tom and jamie’s place the next morning instead of at mine.

it turned out that the ferry back to kho tao was at noon, so i had to leave early. just as i got to the ferry dock, it really started to pour. i didnt bring my umbrella, and there was no cover or rooftops anywhere nearby, so along with the rest of the ferry-bound passengers, we all just stood in the rain and got drenched. completely drenched. for like 15 minutes straight. buy you know what, it was actually really nice. standing there on the docks, dripping w/ water in the warm clean air, looking at the lush hillside of the tropical island… is definitely gonna be one of those moments that stand out in my trip. one of those mental snapshots that are so vivid and clear that you can pull them out again and again later in life to enjoy…

back on kho-tao, i rented another scooter and was off. it’s so weird.. i’m really starting to get the hang of this traveling stuff. another weird thing is that every single morning so far i have woken up in a new bed in a different place. it’s so funny to wake up and spend those first few seconds trying to comprehend just exactly where you ended up and how. tonight, i’m staying in the same bungalow as before on kho tao, so this’ll be the first time i spend more than one night in a place. so this place almost feels like home now.. heh.

-v

sleep was difficult tonight in the bungalow. after falling asleep, i was woken up by a crunching sound. it was LOUD and would not stop. i finally turn on the lights… to see the hugest cockroach of all time. great. it was on a shelf, so i had no way of stepping on it, so i just had to let it keep crunching away. luckily, my bed has mosquito netting all around it, so i tucked the netting around my whole mattress so no roaches could attack. yikes!

i wake up in the morning to a crazy sound that’s coming from all directions. it keeps starting, stopping, ad echoing from all sides. it takes me a while to figure it out, but it turns out that it is the crowing of hundreds of roosters coming from all sides of the island. what a way to be woken up!

let me tell ya about the inside of my bungalow. there’s a bed, covered w/ pink frilly mosquito netting and about 2 feet of space between the bed and the wall… and that’s pretty much it. this bungalow is TINY! the whole thing is built out of sticks and plywood and really looks like if you hit a wall, the whole thing would disintegrate into a pile of rubbish. then there is a door that leads to the bathroom. the weird thing about bathrooms here, is that the whole bathroom is also a shower. so basically, the toilet and sink are there in the shower w/ you. technically (although i have no idea why you would) you could shower while on the toilet, or while brushing your teeth at the sink. also, no hot water. only cold. did i mention that the toilet has no flusher? doh!

after waking up i take diving lesson number 2. we go in a super shallow part of the ocean and practice the basic skills. very easy and quick. no fish yet.. that’s next time. even though the sky is overcast, the ocean is still sooo nice and warm! awesome!

later, i take one last moped ride, and then head for the ferry. i take the ferry to kho phangan cause that’s where i’m gonna meet up w/ jamie, tom, and their friends. the ferry ride is fine and soon i’m on the next island. i go looking for “mr chicken”, the restaurant where i’m gonna meet them and end up running into them elsewhere. turns out there is no mr. chicken. oops! so lucky then that i saw them. if i had ended up going to this island and not meeting them, that would have really sucked.

now it’s POURING! it’s really really coming down. the roads are turning into rivers and it just looks like a mess outside…

-v

every other building on this island has a “bike for rent” sign on it. everyone rents out these moped/scooter things and they only cost 150B a day (4$). i had only been on the island for an hour or so before i started kind of wanting to try one out. according to my guidebook, moped accidents are the leading cause of tourist deaths in thailand. hrm. after contemplating that fact, the fact that the roads here aren’t in great shape and covered w/ gravel, the fact that i’d be driving o the wrong side of the road, and the fact that i’ve never been on anything like that before… it took me about 10 seconds to decide that it was my destiny to try it out.

so i went, rented one, and asked the girl at the counter how to ride it. my lesson lasted less than a minute: “kick this to start, twist this for gas, press this for break, switch gears here.” that was it. so i hesitantly get on the thing, and as i’m wobbling about pressing everything in sight, the girl gets this look on her face like she might have made a bad decision by renting me the bike. she asks me if i’m ok, and i yell that i am as i teeter off.

so, i got in the swing of it in no time. it was way fun… zooming around the little roads of the island. the hardest thing i’d say (other than that i kept forgetting where the beak was) was that i had a really hard time driving on the left side of the road. it’s just not something you get used to very easily.

i also did the first day of my diving instruction today… which unfortunately just consisted of watching a boring video. hopefully tomorrow i’ll get to do some real diving. also tomorrow i’m meeting up w/ jamie, tom, and the rest of their crew so that should be really cool as well.

-vlad

yesterday i decided to take off from bangkok and head to kho tao. i took a taxi to the train station and tried to get a ticket that night for kho tao. unfortunately, they did not have any more sleeper cars, so i would have to endure the whole 9 hour journey sitting up and awake all night. damn. the train station by the way, was totally insane. people rushing everywhere, everyone’s yelling, attendants are pushing their huge luggage carts around and slamming them up and down so that people will get out of the way. after the train is over an hour late, i try on a whim to ask if for some reason there have been any opening in the sleeper carts. there are! shweet!

9 hours later we arrive in the town of champong. it’s pitch black outside (6am) and i stumble out of the train half awake. i need to buy a ferry ticket to kho tao and all of a sudden i realize i have no $$. i ask the guy where there is an atm and he says “follow me”. i follow him around the corner, and he hops on a motorcycle and looks at me expectantly. huh, excuse me? moments later i’m flying thru the streets of champong on the back of this motorcycle. as far as i can tell, the motorcycles here have even less rules than the taxis. they go through red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road at will, and drive more recklessly than i can imagine. in other words, it’s hella fun.

the ferry ride to kho tao was pretty mellow. when we got there, i realized just how beautiful the island is. palm trees and lush jungle everywhere, and the island has that amazing tropical island smell to it. this is definitely a huge change from the cluttered streets of bangkok. when you get to the dock, there are a ton of pick up trucks waiting and everyone wants you in their pickup to take you to their bungalow or their diving class. after piling about 8 or 9 people into the back of a pickup, the truck will take off.

it’s pretty trippy how here it seems that no one has any regard for safety. so much of the stuff that goes on here would never fly in the states. sometimes i wonder if the Us goes a bit overborad on safety. maybe most of their problems are cause everyone is used to being pampered and kept safe so no one actually uses common sense? over here (and in russia too) where everyone drives w/ no rules… somehow there are hardly any accidents, probably cause people are always alert?

so i rented this bungalow by the beach. it’s super tiny and looks like it came straight out of a movie. i also signed up for scuba diving lessons starting today. should be hella fun. i’ve never driven a scooter or anything.. so i’m kinda pondering whether to try it here. i dont think you need a special license or anything.

-v

in a way… it’s kinda sad to me sometimes that this is my first long vacation in years. i mean, i went traveling in europe for a month, but that was sooo many years ago. it’s sad that you only get to do something truly adventurous and crazy once in sooo long. i was rereading “generation x” by douglas coupland on the plane trip here… and i found a quote that really stuck out to me:

“The only reason we all go to work in the morning is because we’re terrified of what would happen if we stopped. we’re not built for free time as a species. we think we are, but we aren’t. Most of us have only two or three genuinely interesting moments in our lives, the rest is filler, and at the end of our lives, most of us will be lucky if any of those moments connect together to form a story that anyone would find remotely interesting.”

-v

so, jetlag is brutal. i’ve always had hella issues w/ sleeping in general at home, but being over here on the new schedule is really tough. during the day i’m pretty exhausted so far and can barely keep my eyes open. last night after dinner, i decided to rest up a bit before going out… next thing i know, it’s the next morning.

i woke up this morning and my stomach was killing me. i didn’t eat anything *too* crazy last night, but i felt totally nauseous and ill. spent till 3pm feeling horrible in my room. ugh!

so i decided to leave bangkok early. i’m catching the night train tonight. i don’t know if it’s cause i’m so tired, or if it’s cause i’m still feeling queasy, but bangkok seems a bit much to me right now. my next stop is going to be Kho tao, a small island on the south east coast of thailand. i’ve been wavering back an forth whether i should try to get my scuba certification, and now i think i’m gonna go for it. kho tao has probably the best diving in all of thailand, so it should definitely be fun!

so, overall, my few days in bangkok were pretty cool. one of the things that struck me most about the city, is it’s blend of new high tech stuff, with all the old-school traditional ways. for instance, almost every street has millions of these food stalls. these are wooden little tables that have a bunch of random produce and slabs of meat and stuff, that the people cook up right there on the street. these stalls are filled w/ all sort of really weird bizarre looking foods, and are just thrown together on a wok. but these stalls often stand in front of jewelry stores, 7 elevens, and other totally modern places. speaking of 7 elevens, there are soo many of them! at least 4 times now i’ve seen a 7eleven across the street from another 7eleven. you’ll see monks wearing the traditional saffron robes and sandals, and then they get on a bus. you’ll see an elephant on the street in front of a club blaring the latest eminem single. such a weird mix.

the other striking thing about bkk is all the poverty. you see people laying in the streets everywhere while sleeping. a lot of the alleys are filled w/ run down houses and “restaurants”. stray dogs wander the streets looking for food.

oh, and another funny thing about it is how much of a backpacker mecca it is. anywhere you go you’ll see tons of young people speaking every single language in the book. everyone’s wearing backpacks, and there are internet cafes all over the place.

anyways, that’s pretty much it for today. i need to get outta here to catch a train!

-vlad

so this was my first morning in bangkok. due to the time change etc, i woke up this morning before 8am and couldn’t go back to sleep. i switched hotels this morning and got a room w/ AC. it’s insanely hot here right now. and very very muggy too. after getting the room, i go up a million flights of stairs to my room… and nothing in it works. no lights, no AC, no tv, etc. after going all the way back down to the front desk, it turns out that you need to put your key in this special slot to turn on the electricity.

Mystery Soup

there was a place next door to the hotel selling soup, so i figured, what the hell, let’s try it. i point to the soup, try to look puzzled, and ask “what is it?”. i get the response “you wan soop?”. “ok, but what’s in it?”. “you wan soop?”. i try to enunciate really slowly this time “what… is… inside…. soup”. “you wan soop?”. oh well, i agree to try the soup. i figure this is gonna happen pretty frequently from now on. the mysterious soup ends up having some strange things inside. there’s what i thought was gonna be chicken.. but turned out to be something else tougher (i’ve never eaten pork, but i assume that was it). there is this other thing that looked like chicken.. but ended up not tasting like any kind of meat.. or vegetable for that matter. also, there was a weird white ball. after probing the ball with a chopstick, i decided to not eat it. too scary. it’s funny, back home, i didn’t think i’d be afraid of hardly any kind of food here, but it turns out that pretty much everything here looks kinda weird. i’m definitely down to try some of it.. so we’ll see how it goes. oh yeah, overall, the soup was actually pretty damn good. and it was only 50 cents.

TUK-TUKS From Hell

The main thing to see here in bangkok is the watts. i decided to check that off my list of things to see first. of course i had no idea how to get where i wanted to go. does this city have street signs? cause i don’t think i’ve seen any at all so far. so there are these things called tuk-tuks here. they are these little 3 wheeled golfcart type things. you see them all over the city, and their drivers constantly harass you to go w/ them. i’m telling ya, these people are vicious. they talk to you all smiling, asking where you’re from etc, while they lie to you. the main lie they tell is that wherever you want to go is closed. why is it closed? oh, there’s a million reasons they’ll make up “it’s christmas. today is thai only day. buddhist holiday. closed for a lunch break.” i’ve heard all these excuses.. and i’ve only been here one day. sometimes they pretend to just be random strangers.. start chatting you up, and then all of a sudden “oh, by the way.. my friend has a tuk tuk.. i call him. get you special price”. anyways, as i mentioned before, i’m lost.. so i figure what the heck. i’ll try out this tuktuk, since i’m only in thailand once and i’ll never get to ride one again. trying to reason w/ the driver is insanely ridiculous, but finally i get to where i want to go.

Watts

i went to the Grand Palace, the Watt Phra-kew, and Watt Pho. they were all so amazing!! the first sight you get of them is just so breathtaking. these cool temples glitter like crazy in the sun. i had seen pictures of them before, but nothing really prepared me for how cool they really look. everything is covered in gold and bright colors. i’ve traveled all over europe before and have seen tons of impressive churches, but really they’re all nothing compared to these Watts. i took mad photos, so if i can find a place here that has usb, i’ll upload them. one of the really cool things to see was the reclining buddha. this thing is HUGE. it’s an enormous golden buddha that takes up a whole room. it’s actually 50 yards in length!!

so that’s it for now. it’s about 4ish here… and i’m not really sure yet what i’m gonna do w/ the rest of my day.

-vlad